1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to an image forming apparatus, a method of forming an image, and a computer-readable recording medium, and more particularly to an image forming apparatus that can synthesize print data without decreasing image quality and print the data, a method of editing printed documents, and a computer-readable recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image forming apparatus means an apparatus which prints print data generated by a terminal device such as a computer onto a print paper. An image forming apparatus may include, as an example, a copier, a printer, a facsimile machine or a multi-functional peripheral (MFP) which complexly implements the functions of the copier, the printer and the facsimile machine in one device.
Recent image forming apparatuses support an image synthesis technique in the image forming apparatus itself, and a user selects one of prestored form data to edit print data to be copied or printed. For example, a user can perform a synthesis to insert a security document watermark into print data requiring security, or to insert various designs into print document edges.
A conventional technology supports two methods of such synthesis. In the first method, an image to be used as a form image is converted to a digital image via a scanner and stored, and print data is synthesized with the stored form image and then printed when a copying or printing job is performed.
In the second method, a form is generated with a page description language (PDL) via a particular application and a driver, is stored in an image forming apparatus, and when print data with the same PDL is received, the print data is synthesized with the form and then printed.
However, according to the first method, quality is decreased due to color conversion or resolution difference when a scanned image is synthesized with halftoned print data.
According to the second method, a form image as PDL itself is stored to reduce quality loss, but the form image cannot be used in an image forming apparatus with different print languages since the form image is stored in the form of PDL data.